abstinent, active, and reactive virtues

I’m posting this in part as an introduction to some language that’s been rattling around in my head. I think it’s a useful distinction to make. I’ll be using it later. I probably wouldn’t have lost anyone, but it never hurts to be sure.

Watching Constantine a couple weekends ago, right before mid-semester craziness, I was forcibly reminded of one of my big criticisms of religion, or at least of the christian religion. So, in the catholic doctrine, suicide is an instant ticket to hell. Probably in alot of other judeochristian sects as well, but I’m only talking about the one I know well.

And, in fact, the catholic doctrine seems to be full of non-refundable tickets to hell. The 10 commandments are mostly about things one shouldn’t be doing, “thou shalt not” being the order of the day. Other than “honor thy father and thy mother” and “keep holy the sabbath” it’s all about bad stuff. 80% about avoidance. See also, I think it’s Leviticus, in general. No mixed fabrics, no seeding the kid in the milk of the mother or whatever. All sorts of thou shalt nots.

Interestingly, the stuff Jesus says in the gospels is more about how to respond to things, and treat people. Love your enemies, do good to those who hurt you. Turn the other cheek. Love your neighbor. He was actually a pretty damn bossy guy.

But there’s a distinct tonal constrast here. The first set is all about not doing, or what I’d call abstinent virtue. The second set is about appropriate responses, or what I’ll call reactive virtue. The final set is about moral imperatives, actions that one is supposed to take, which I’ll call active virtue. My dad actually wrote a paper in his seminarian days where he talked about the “thou shalt not” of the old testament v “the thou shalt” of the new testament. He says that he was writing something to the effect of “It is time to cast off the old testament morality of ‘thou shalt not’ and embrace the new testament morality of ‘thou shalt'”, and right at that moment an earthquake struck southern illinois, to which he reacted by running outside yelling apologies and repentence. =)

Humor value aside, I think he was really onto something there.

Applying this perspective to myself, I see myself as highest on abstinent virtues. Not so high as I used to be, but no murder, no worshipping false gods (I don’t worship real gods either, but that’s okay), nearly straight edge, vegan, low oil consumption, etc, etc. Sex is another story, but even there I’m pretty careful about what I do, and who I do it with. Clearly not careful enough, but so it goes.

In terms of reactive virtues, I mostly worry about overreaction (arguably avoiding overreaction is an abstinent virtue, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment). Eg, responding to verbal taunts with physical violence, etc, etc. And on that front, I’ll give myself a pretty good ranking as well. In terms of reactive virtue there’s also consoling the hurt, guiding the lost, helping little old ladies across the street, tutoring the calculus clueless, blah, blah, blah. Once again, I do pretty well there.

Then we get into what I like to call true active virtues, or generally taking the initiative to do good things. Calling one’s parents. Studying independently. Working on a problem without being told to. Entrepreneurial virtue. Creating value in the world. This is undoubtedly my weak point. Working out, hell, working in general, be it for money or self-improvement is not a strong suit. Selectively, but enthusiastically, responsive passivity is a major part of my character in terms of meaningful activity. I make few decisions. But I have all these goals. Hmmmm. Problem.

The further one goes in life, the less it seems to be about doing what others tell you, and the more it seems to be about not just figuring out what to do, but then going out & doing it. I could cite reasons why I’m the way I am until I’m blue in the face. Generally getting smacked down for taking the initiative, or receiving little reward for doing so, particularly in childhood. But where does that get me? Unless I use that idea as inspiration for a way to encourage myself to develop some more active virtues.

Discuss. =)

game night

I had a great night at and ‘s. I played repeated rounds of 10 days in Africa, including two consecutive, excessively quick wins. Some bizarre uno variant that spits cards at you, a few games of tongiaki (I barely eked out a win on my last game. I had booted everyone else from Tonga, and made it difficult to come back. And my last move started with a massive out migration from the motherland which resulted in the removal of many of these smaller tribes from a particular wing of our little archipelago. Prior to that, I was pretty sure I’d lost, but the little diaspora saved my butt. =) Those guys picked that one up fast. Good food, great company. Yay. =)

interview regrets

I always feel bad after interviews, but I have a couple reasons here. No experience with giving interviews (well, oops, I do actually have such experience), minor point, or so I thought. Then there was the “what do you hope to learn from any hypothetical internship” which I apparently took as a “reconstruct a history of your writing anxiety for us”. Why am I so stupid? He asked me how my search for other opportunities were going. (ouch) In the thank you note, I added the information on the interview experience, and a couple writing samples. (Offering protestations that I was too hard on myself seemed completely retarded, besides, they didn’t have any real writing samples. Let them judge for themselves if I’m too fucking self-effacing). Le sigh.

I need to look into other opportunities, starting pre-surgery. Bleh!

Today and upcoming trip

Today I got up early and just barely missed the express bus. Then spent many productive hours at work coding up a webpage translator to go from regular html to the special html that our new service requires, so that it can convert it back to html. Lovely isn’t it? Lunch discussing office politics, at tasty new restaurant, an easy bike ride away.

Unable to concentrate post-lunch, so I play a few rounds of wc3, same map, always computer orc, me undead. On my third try today, I win. (I’ve lost track of prior attempts at this scario. Did I mentation that I really like the dark ranger?)

Afterwards off to get a couple bike pumps (one for home, one strapon for emergencies), and I pick up a bike map for minneapolis while I’m there. Share a bus back with which turns into a trip to dreamhaven. He suggests reading material, some of which I get for my upcoming trip. Yay, Brian.

I go home, try to pump up my bike tires, and rip off a valve due to general stupidity. So I go out, buy an innertube, tire tools, zip ties, and a new set of biking gloves. Then back to the house, and much time spent fucking with the bike. Eventually, I get the cranky thing happy, or at least as happy as ever it has been. I bike down the greenway, which is still closed off at the midtown exchange. Grrr.

Home, laundry, livejournal.

Plans for tomorrow. When I land I’ll probably hang out in dupont circle area for a bit. Grab some vegan chinese food. Look for a haircut & vegan dress shoes. Dinner with mom & elizabeth. Hopefully stay with . Done a bad job of the planning/arranging for this. =)

Friday morning interview. Tool around the gao neighborhood early friday afternoon. Mid-afternoon, meet with my gao contact. Evening, barhopping, maybe? Saturday board games at le chateau de and . Later evening activities hard to say. Return sunday.

Oh yeah, my finances? Fucked. *sigh* I’d like to think that I’d learn to manage my money, perhaps when I have money to manage things will be different. We shall see.